Death's Door
by Cloud-Dee
Summary: Death is a strange being. She has been around since the beginning of everything and will still be there when everything ends... Death watches one person discover what death truly is and why he has been spared for so long.  Just a short oneshot about Alex.


Death is a strange being. She has been around since the very beginning of everything and will still be there when everything ends. She waits in the shadows and watches life go by, watches each individual be born, grow up, become old and then finally will reveal herself from the shadows where she has been hiding to welcome the person across her doorstep into the world beyond.

But Death is unhappy. She watches life, happiness, love, friendship, watches it all florish and grow and she has to be the one to end it when a person's time has finally run out. This is Death's eternal burden.

But Death does her job, day after day and she accepts that people have a time and everyone has to move on when their time comes. The old woman who's heart eventually gave up, the young man who was killed in a tragic rockfall. Their times had been written for them long before they had been born and things had come to pass just the way they should have. Their time had run out.

But humans have a tendancy to not be able to wait for their time. They throw their lives or others away so much earlier than was written. The little girl who fell out of the tree and broke her neck. That was not meant to happen. She was meant to live until eighty six and die peacefully in her sleep. The collage student who was killed in a car crash on the moterway. That was not meant to happen either. He was meant to grow up and become a lawyer, win many cases and protect many innocent people from being wrongly sentenced. But through actions that Death was unable to control she was forced to take them as well, them like so many others who's time had not yet come but who had come knocking on Death's Door anyway.

But what made Death angry was when anothers life was forced on her by another human on purpose. The young woman who had been stabbed in her bed. She was meant to grow up, get married and have children and meet death a happy old woman ready for a new adventure. And that young policeman who was shot by a sniper for looking to deep into a case that had been hushed up. He was meant to become the chief of police, solve many important cases and die smiling, holding his wife's hand and saying goodbye. But their lives had been ended suddenly and Death had no choice but to take them away.

Because Death knows that fate of almost everyone, she watches with interest the ones whose fates are undecided, unplanned. And that is why she has curiously watched the life of the blond haired, brown eyed boy whoes fate is so twisted with her own. From the moment he was born she knew he was special. But it saddened her as she knew he would meet her more than anyone should have to. And it was with great regret that she welcomed first his parents and them his uncle through her door. And she watched as he dogged her so many times, as he unwillingly sent others to her in his place in order to keep thousands from her clutches. And he hated her but she loved him because he prevented her from having to welcome so many more innocent people away from the world they love. And he dodged her and hid from her and when he finally lay on the pavement with a bullet through his chest she locked her door and refused to let him move on. She gave him another chance. And he used it well.

Alex Rider was always aware of Death, following him through the shadows. And every time he sent another villan into her waiting arms he thought she would be angry that he had cheated her out of the thousands of others he had saved. But over the years he came to realise that Death was unwilling to take people away, that Death was not a thing that haunted humans, waiting for an opportunity to strike. Death was merely a lonely being who was forced to take away people who had been torn from life by others. Death had watched over him and had spared him and he knew she would try to keep him alive for as long as possible, until the time came when he could greet her like on old friend and pass through her door to his family beyond. But until then he had to keep fighting, preventing more people from meeting Death before their time. Alex no longer hated Death because he had realised the truth. Humans are not haunted by Death. It is Death that is haunted by humans.


End file.
